


we won a battle (but lost a war)

by xinteng



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Alternate Universe - War, Angst, Blood and Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, I'm so sorry, M/M, War, no happy ending because that's life folks!, oneforallfest, the result of some rather uninspired writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 18:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18856198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xinteng/pseuds/xinteng
Summary: The thing was-The thing was, it was never meant to be this way.





	we won a battle (but lost a war)

**Author's Note:**

> my first ever entry in a fest! a big thank you to the mods for hosting this fest, it was truly a pleasure to be a part of. 
> 
> this actually wasn't my original entry for the fest... it was supposed to be a baekxing soulmate au, but I wrote the first part of it, re-read it, and then promptly decided it was utter garbage so I deleted it and started over a couple months in. 
> 
> anyways. please, enjoy!

[1]

  
It was hot. Baekhyun can feel the sweat gathering from his hairline, trailing slowly down his neck before seeping into the collar of his shirt. Ducking into the nearest tent he sees, he sighs in relief at the protection from the sun, swiping the water bottle he spots resting on the ground by his foot. The water is lukewarm at best, but it’s better than nothing, and Baekhyun knows better than to complain. It’s the military after all, and he’s there to serve, not to relax.

  
He decides to go practice target shooting.

  
Flipping up the flap of the tent, he winces at the brightness of the sun, eyes straining to adjust back to the light. He heads off in the direction of the fields, nodding and saluting politely when he walks past commanding officers and those ranked higher than him- which was almost every person in the camps.

  
It feels like forever before he finally reaches the edge of their camp and spies the targets set up for practice. He stops short at the sight of someone else already there, watching quietly as the other man calmly loads his gun, leans it up against the sandbags stacked neatly along the ground, aims, and shoots. Baekhyun follows the line of the shot to the target, and notes with awe the line of perfectly clean holes, stark against the body of the figure.

  
He doesn’t know how long he stands there, transfixed as the other man keeps shooting, never missing once.

  
“If you’re not going to practice, leave,” he jumps at the sudden sound of the man’s voice, and Baekhyun slowly trails his gaze up from where he had been watching the other’s slender fingers press against the trigger to said man’s eyes, which are narrowed at him in the bright sun.

  
“I,” he stutters, caught off guard. “Sorry. I’ll go.”

  
He pivots on his heel, embarrassed and wanting to escape.

  
As he walks, he feels the other man’s quizzical gaze trained on his back, and Baekhyun shivers, involuntarily.

 

 

 

 

 

[2]

  
His name is Zhang Yixing, Baekhyun learns, as he shovels a spoonful of the stew into his mouth. He’s the commanding officer of their infantry, and he’s quiet for the most part, though Baekhyun has watched him interject into conversations on occasion, drawing laughs out of the men seated beside him.

  
He hasn’t talked to him since the day at the practice range, but it’s like he’s constantly _there_ , hovering around camp and perpetually in the corner of Baekhyun’s peripheral vision. Which, given that he is the commanding officer and all, made sense. But that didn’t make it any less awkward.

  
To be honest, Baekhyun isn’t even sure Yixing knows his name. Sure, he has his last name- _Byun_ \- embroidered neatly on a patch across his chest, but still. Yixing’s never had a conversation with him, never looked at him past a cursory glance while calling roll.

  
Baekhyun tells himself he doesn’t care. It’s better this way, he thinks. Save himself some of the awkwardness of having to explain why he was just staring at Yixing that day.

  
So he doesn’t know why he still stares at Yixing during mealtimes. He wants to avoid him, not attract further attention.

 

He keeps telling himself that.

 

 

 

 

 

[3]

  
The war isn’t like anything he expects. It’s quiet- boring, almost- most days, long afternoons spent digging trenches and slapping mosquitoes away when they hum too close to his ears. The nights are hot, humid, and sticky, and oftentimes Baekhyun finds himself unable to sleep, tossing and turning on his thin blanket before giving up and staring up at the dirty smudges on the canvas tent above him. He listens to the cicadas chirp outside, the leaves as they brush up against one another in the faint breeze, and the snoring of the other men beside him.

  
It’s one such night when he decides there’s no point to him simply lying there if he knows he won’t be able to fall asleep, so he quietly slips on his shoes and ducks out of the tent, wandering aimlessly around the camp.

  
His mind is blissfully blank- he’s simply watching the dirt curl up around his shoes each time he takes a step, rocks crunching underfoot, when he hears a small cough behind him.

  
“Can’t sleep?”

  
Baekhyun turns to face the voice and is surprised when he finds himself a few steps away from Yixing. He shrugs. “It’s too hot.”

  
The other man smiles, not enough for the dimple that Baekhyun has grown familiar with to appear, but enough so that Baekhyun feels the rough edges of his nerves smooth out, relax. “I couldn’t sleep either, the first few months,” he admits. There’s a certain quality to the tone of his voice that Baekhyun recognizes within himself, a resonating hollowness that tugs sharply beneath his chest. Loneliness, he realizes.

  
Baekhyun stretches out, folds his hands behind his head and lies down, staring up at the sky above them. It’s cloudy tonight, but through the wisps he can still faintly see stars shining down. “Do you ever get used to it?” he asks, and though the question is vague, Baekhyun knows that Yixing gets what he means.

  
Yixing looks down at him, carefully considering, before lying down next to him. It’s a while before he speaks again, and when he does, Baekhyun strains to hear him over the rustling of the grass, the whispering of the forest.

  
“No,” he sighs. “No, I don’t think you ever do.”

  
It’s not exactly the comforting answer Baekhyun is looking for, but he appreciates the raw honesty behind it regardless. He nods, though Yixing can’t see him from the angle he’s lying in, and for once, stays silent, looking up at the stars twinkling above them.

 

 

 

 

 

[3.5]

  
Privacy is unheard of, in the midst of this war. So it shouldn’t be a surprise when Baekhyun heads down to the stream to wash up, grimacing when he reaches up to swat a mosquito away from his face only to feel the dirt encrusted along the collar of his shirt, quickly turning into mud streaked along his neck, and yet-

  
His mouth runs dry when he sees Yixing, naked, waist-deep in the rushing water and scrubbing at his uniform determinedly. It should be a crime, he thinks, flushing, that someone can be _that_ good looking- there’s water dripping down from his hair into his eyes, and Baekhyun can only stare as Yixing pushes his hair back, toned muscles rippling as he moves. His skin is pale, collarbones jutting out sharply, and _god_ , those thighs-

  
Baekhyun forces his eyes away.

 

 

 

 

 

[4]

 

It’s horrifying, the way that killing is so easy.

  
A quick squeeze of a trigger, a loud pop and copper blooms in the air, lands in the dirt, on his clothes, beneath his fingernails.

  
It’s sunny, the day Baekhyun becomes a murderer. He doesn’t think about it- there’s a man creeping up to their trench with his own rifle aimed squarely at Baekhyun’s infantry and Baekhyun mindlessly, routinely presses his finger down, just like all those times he had practiced with Yixing.

  
It doesn’t register in his mind, what he’s done until he sees the man crumple to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut, a clean shot through and through the heart. Seconds ago, Baekhyun had been innocent. Now, he is a murderer.

  
He thinks of the man, lying motionless in the dirt a few feet away from him. A slender figure, uniform just a touch too large on his frame, skin tanned dark from the sun. A farm boy perhaps. Young. He had probably grown up in one of the villages around here, lived his whole life dreaming of going to one of the bigger cities to study. He loved someone- a childhood friend, though he had never had the time to tell her. He had a younger brother who waited by the door every evening for him to come back from the fields, who wanted him to tuck him in at night and tell him stories and check under his bed for monsters, who had cried when he had whispered to him that he was leaving for the war, that he would keep him safe, keep them all safe. He had whispered to him to be brave, to take care of the rest of his family for him. He had forgotten to tell his mother that he loved her before he left. He died, with that last regret in mind.

  
The world keeps spinning, and the men keep fighting, and yet-

  
Baekhyun has changed.

 

 

 

 

 

[4.5]

  
Nausea rushes through him, the moment he reaches the river. He frantically starts to strip off his clothing- there’s blood on it, there’s blood on _him_ , and he doesn’t know whose it is. It’s all the same, he supposes, and it makes him laugh bitterly, because in the end, they all bleed the same. They all die the same.

  
He feels like he can’t breathe- the uniform is choking him, mocking him, and his fingers- the same fingers that had pressed the trigger- tremble as they try to unzip and unbuckle all his gear. His legs are wobbly beneath him, and he crumbles to the ground, much as the man he had shot earlier did. He’s crying, he realizes, big, breathless sobs that leave him gasping for air and clutching at the dying grass around him and for a brief moment, he wishes that he was the one who had been shot instead.

  
Gentle fingers touch him.

  
Slowly, as if not to scare him, arms tug him into a half-upright position, and then he is cradled against a warm chest. Hesitantly, Baekhyun glances up through his tears and sees the edge of a smile, a familiarly deep dimple greeting him. _Yixing_ , he realizes in shock.

  
“I’m sorry,” he says, and he hates how his voice comes out- small, weak.

  
He feels Yixing shake his head above him. “Don’t be,” he can feel Yixing’s chest vibrate as he speaks. “Don’t apologize.”

  
Baekhyun pulls away slightly, to fully look at him.

  
It’s a paradox, really, that despite the dirtiness of war, physically and emotionally, Yixing still looks like an angel. Baekhyun isn’t sure exactly when he had started thinking of his commanding officer as such, but there’s something undeniably ethereal about the way the elder looks even with dirt smeared across his face, with blood staining his shirt and beneath his fingernails. Perhaps it’s the gentle way Yixing talks- Baekhyun thinks that if he had met Yixing outside of this goddamned war, he would’ve guessed Yixing was a teacher, or something equally comforting and soft. Not this.

  
“I,” _killed him_ , he wants to say, but the words get caught in his throat. “Am I a bad person?” he stares at his hands. At the blood crusted in the lines of his palms, drying a dirty brown shade, at the fingers that had pressed the trigger.

  
Instead of answering, Yixing tugs him closer to the river’s edge. He takes one of Baekhyun’s hands, thumb brushing soothingly along his palm, before pulling it down and letting it dangle in the rushing water.

  
They watch, as the river washes their hands clean.

 

 

 

 

 

[5]

 

The river had become their unofficial meeting area, in the days following. They didn’t always see each other- Baekhyun would often sit there alone on slow afternoons, staring at the sky and feeling the warm earth beneath him, watching ants crawl their way across the hills and valleys of his body. Sometimes, at night when he couldn’t sleep, he would make his way down to the river and find Yixing already there on the bank, eyes closed, a small smile on his face. He’d creep up to him to try and scare him, but somehow Yixing always knew he was coming, even though Baekhyun swore up and down that he had been as silent as a mouse.

  
Tonight though, Baekhyun was determined to catch Yixing off guard. He carefully picked his away across the field, approaching Yixing’s relaxed figure from afar, quietly observing him for any sign of awareness. Nothing.

  
He was standing right next to Yixing, grinning triumphantly when Yixing’s hand suddenly shot out and grabbed his, yanking him down hard and sending Baekhyun tumbling straight into Yixing’s lap.

"I heard you from ten feet away,” Yixing smiles down at him, and there’s a certain look in his eyes that Baekhyun recognizes as equal parts humor and fondness.  
Baekhyun pouts. “I was being stealthy.”

  
Yixing hums in acquiescence. “Of course.”

  
He punches Yixing in the shoulder, hard. “Don’t mock me.”

  
“I’m not,” the elder says, but he’s laughing while rubbing his arm with his other hand. “Ouch, by the way. For someone so small, you do pack quite a punch.”

  
“I’m not small,” he gasps, affronted.

  
Yixing dares to ruffle the top of his hair. “You’re right,” he nods gravely, before continuing, “you’re tiny.”

  
They look at each other then, both laughing, and something changes in Yixing’s gaze, perhaps a touch hesitant before he leans in, cupping Baekhyun’s cheek with one well-worn palm. Baekhyun forgets how to breathe. He stays still, as Yixing leans in and gently, gently lets his lips touch his, feather light. Yixing waits, and when Baekhyun still doesn’t move, he sighs softly and pulls away. “I’m sor-” he begins, but is cut off when Baekhyun regains his senses and pulls him back by the lapels of his shirt, kissing him firmly on the mouth.

  
The war fades into a distant memory as they kiss, Baekhyun licking into Yixing’s mouth, wanting to feel his smooth skin under his fingers. Yixing pushes his fingers into Baekhyun’s hair, scraping along his scalp, and Baekhyun accidentally moans. He feels Yixing smile into the kiss.

  
He doesn’t know how long they spend there that night, learning each other, picking each other apart piece by piece, but he knows this.

  
In those stolen moments, he has never felt more at bliss.

 

 

 

 

 

[5.5]

  
“Promise me something,” Baekhyun turns to Yixing, and the other man is surprised, if the way his eyes widen before settling on his figure is any indication. He waits.  
“Promise me that if- if something happens, out there,” he pauses, swallows around the odd dryness of his mouth, “that you won’t come back for me.”

  
Yixing frowns. “I’m your commanding officer. I’m the one who’s supposed to say that, not you.”

  
Baekhyun ignores him. “Just promise me.”

  
Yixing turns around so he isn’t facing him and stays silent.

  
Baekhyun glares at his back.

 

 

 

 

 

[6]

  
“Go,” he’s screaming, vocal cords strained and veins stark against his dirt-smudged neck. He pushes against Yixing, as if that can convince him to turn around, to leave him behind. He’s dead weight with his injuries, and both of them know it, and yet Yixing refuses to let him go, arm slung steadily around Baekhyun’s waist, fingers curled tightly into his ripped uniform.

  
“I’m not leaving you behind,” he says, lips pressed firmly together, determined.

 

“You promised,” and he’s sobbing now, because _fuck_ , it’s all he can say when Yixing is being this stubborn and annoying and _stupid._

  
“I’m not leaving you behind,” he repeats.

  
They stumble onwards for what seems like thousands of meters, though Baekhyun can’t really tell through the haze of his blood loss and the darkness of the forest. There are bodies lying around them, bodies of people they know, and Baekhyun holds back the bile rising up in his throat as he passes faces he recognizes.

  
They’re no longer in the middle of the fight, but still well within shooting range, and both of them are painfully aware of that as Yixing hisses, a bullet whizzing past his shoulder and clipping him. Crimson blooms across the fabric the way ink spreads across water. Their steps become more rushed, less careful, and they’re almost there- almost to where they’ve set up camp and have reinforcements- when Yixing stumbles.

  
They’re so close.

  
“We’re almost there,” he pants out, and they’re pulling each other now, grimacing with every step, hands clenched white-knuckled around each other, slick with blood that Baekhyun isn’t sure is his or Yixing’s.

  
They’re maybe a hundred meters away from safety when both of them hear a distinct click from the dirt underfoot. Baekhyun closes his eyes and if he thought he was panicked before- he is absolutely terrified now. No, he thinks. No, not when we’re so close. Neither of them dare to move, and they stand, frozen in the middle of a battlefield, for five beats of Baekhyun’s heart.

  
“It’s me,” Yixing says quietly, and there’s something in his tone that infuriates Baekhyun. It’s resigned, defeated, a stark contrast to the single-minded determination from when Yixing refused to leave Baekhyun behind.

  
“You don’t know that,” he argues.

  
Yixing shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes and gently, gently relaxes his fingers where they have been tightly pressed against Baekhyun’s. “I felt it when I stepped down.”

  
Baekhyun just laces his fingers back together with Yixing’s. “Okay,” he says, and even though he’s scared, he forces his voice to stay calm, soothing. “We can fix this. I just need to find something that can replace your weight and then we’ll have to run for it.” Even as the words slip past his lips, Baekhyun knows it’s nearly hopeless. There’s hardly anything in the field that could fill in for Yixing’s weight, and even if he managed to find something, neither of them are in any condition to run. He keeps rambling, mouth forming words that he’s not even sure he’s saying, and frantically, he feels tears press up against his eyelids.

  
“Baekhyun-ah,” it’s Yixing’s soft utterance of his name that stops his incoherent mumbling. “Baekhyunnie.”

  
It’s odd, almost, the way his vision narrows in on Yixing in that moment, the sticky blood smeared across his cheek, eyes soft and steady and his hand reaching, reaching up to smooth his thumb under Baekhyun’s eye, just fleetingly across his cheekbone. “Go,” he says, sweetly.

  
Baekhyun kisses him.

  
It’s different from the kiss they had shared before in the river, the day they had pretended like they were just two boys in love, two boys who never knew the taste of war. This kiss is tinged with the bitterness of futility, and Baekhyun knows both of them feel it, knows it in the way Yixing slides his hand around to tenderly cup Baekhyun’s chin, fingers splayed out against his cheek, the way Baekhyun can’t let him go, keeps his mouth pressed to his like he’s suffocating and Yixing is air.  
Reluctantly, Yixing pulls back, leaving Baekhyun grasping at the sleeves of his uniform, desperate. He reaches for Baekhyun’s fingers, detaching them methodically from his clothing, and tangles their hands together, palm to palm, before he lets go and shoves Baekhyun away. “Leave, Baekhyun. You _need_ to leave, now.”

  
He shakes his head- he refuses to leave Yixing here to die, cold and alone.

  
Yixing’s voice hardens. “It’s an order,” he says, softly.

  
Baekhyun scoffs. “Fuck you. Fuck your orders.”

  
“Please,” his eyes are starting to well, and Baekhyun stares and stares and stares, because he’s never seen Yixing cry-

  
“Please, go. I’m begging you, Baekhyunnie. Go.”

  
It’s the desperation in his voice that finally makes Baekhyun turn, tears streaming down his face, and run. Self-hatred burns in his lungs the entire way.

 

 

 

 

 

[7]

He’s dying.

  
There’s blood dripping down his leg, crimson and viscous, slowly staining his once green uniform an unappealing brown shade. Yixing would hate this, he thinks, and nearly laughs out loud at how ludicrous the thought is- he’s stumbling around in the dark, half-dead, and all he can think about is the way Yixing would scold him for getting his shirt dirty, that familiar dimple pressed into his cheek as he tries not to smile.

  
He stumbles into a tree, trying to force air down into his lungs as his chest burns with an unfamiliar pain. He can’t hear the sounds of the forest- there’s a ringing in his ears that Baekhyun somehow doubts will ever quite fade away- and yet, past all that, he can hear Yixing’s voice within his mind, urging him on. _Go, Baekhyunnie_ , he says. You need to keep moving.

  
_Go._

 

 

 

 

 

[8]

  
The thing was-

  
The thing was, it was never meant to be this way.

 

 

 

 

 

[9]

  
He collapses, sticks and rocks bruising his body as he lands on them, to weak to even stop his fall with his hands. Delirious with pain, he can see tents just ahead, flapping in the wind. “Up you get,” he hears a familiar voice say, and he twists his head enough to see Yixing, reaching a hand out to help him up. His clothes are new, freshly pressed, his hair is nicely combed, face young and clean, trademark dimple pressed into his cheek as he grins at Baekhyun.

  
“Yixing,” he mumbles.

  
Later, he will swear that he had felt Yixing help him up, had felt his warmth wrap an arm around his shoulders, had felt him press a quick kiss to the corner of his lips. “You’ll make it, Baekhyunnie. You’re going to make it.”

  
Slowly, he stumbles into camp, just far enough for the others to find him and bring him to the infirmary. He feels Yixing slip away from him, and his heart breaks, all over again.

 

 

 

 

 

[10]

  
He wonders when the war will end.

**Author's Note:**

> so uh, yeah. i agonized over killing yixing for a good two weeks, then decided i had to do it. i'm so sorry yixing.
> 
> this is far from my best writing, so i sincerely apologize bc i'm not entirely happy with the way this turned out. in the future i'll probably come back and rework it so it's a little longer and less rushed! there were some scenes i had to cut because i couldn't finish them in time, and the pacing of the fic is a little odd because i wrote it in parts instead of in one sitting like i normally do. regardless, thank you so much for reading! i hope you at least somewhat enjoyed it.
> 
> come talk to me!  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/staryxz)  
> [tumblr](https://dimpledliar.tumblr.com)  
> [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/yixingzhang)


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